Monday, November 17, 2008

JADE: relating to the senses in the design process

Look, listen, touch, smell, taste to design...

Client: The Bean Coffee Shop & Ice Cream Parlour

Project: Logo Design

The Bean - a coffee shop and ice cream parlour wanted our designers to create a mascot for their new coffee shop and ice cream parlour. Some of the 'buzz words in their client brief - "Funky, fun, family-friendly, catchy, colorful but with some earthiness".

After the initial briefing with the client, the designers are already having to consider and relate to the many different senses at this early stage of the design process. The words “funky” and catchy” can be referred to music, so you have to “listen” to get the design started. “Fun” can be related to sight- bubbly shapes and colours for instants. And the word “colourful” can be related the taste and smell, in the case, the taste of icecream, sweet, sugary things and creamy coffee.

Once sent to the studio, our designers set about creating a series of character sketches, all based on a coffee bean, that could be integrated into the logo and marketing material.

The brown coffee bean mascot character relates to the warm feeling and rich taste of fresh coffee.

In the case of The Bean, our designers went through several rounds of character development before settling on the final mascot that would form the main component of the logo. The Bean started off life as a 'cute' little fellah, and it wasn't until later versions did he develop his 'hip style'. In a few versions, our designers even placed a Mohawk hairdo (left) but that was nixed by the client as being too 'out there'. Then came the glasses and in the final version, a trendy goatee. His smug expression added to the overall 'coolness' and 'attitude' of the character.

The “cool” appearance of the mascot character can relate to “cool” and “funky” music, so here, it’s appropriate to “listen” to the design.

What has started as a fairly benign character finally had enough style to be incorporated into a logo. Complimentary fonts were selected, as well as a bright color scheme (to illustrate coffee and orange sherbert ice cream.

The bright colour scheme the designers chose to use relate to the sweet tastes of the sherbet icecream.Once The Bean character was finalized, it was then scanned and turned into vector artwork. (necessary for most modern applications and traditional reproduction methods). The remaining sketches were archived should the client require images of The Bean mascot in various positions and/or activities. In the final stages of the project, the logo was set up for use on a host of marketing and promotion items.